


Day 4: Helpless

by KnowledgequeenAbc



Series: Angst Week 2020 [3]
Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Gen, I have no clue how to write him sorry, Incorrect Character Analysis basically, addresses Zane's death, bc rip Kai and Nya, implied alcoholism, no beta we spiral into self-hatred like Kai, oh also mentions to poverty and food shortages as kids, which also happens here incidentally enough, wild speculation as to what drives Kai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:01:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25898617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KnowledgequeenAbc/pseuds/KnowledgequeenAbc
Summary: Kai spends his life chasing power. It's a promise of something greater. It's a promise of rising above vulnerability.
Series: Angst Week 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1875817
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20





	Day 4: Helpless

**Author's Note:**

> Join me for ... wildly loose character analysis, I guess! Kai's turn to be angsted up, and I don't even really do anything to him that canon doesn't. :')

Kai is just a boy, but already his shoulders hang heavy with the weight of responsibility. No amount of resolutely squaring them when potential customers walk in can hide that fact. Today, he feels it like an oppressive cloak, no matter how much he tries to go about business as usual.

The rice fields in Ignacia yielded a poor harvest this year, the air too frigid to let the crop thrive. More seasoned villagers are already reassuring the other denizens that such misfortunes come and go, grimly preparing to hold out on the food they do have until the next harvest season. Kai listens to the store owners as they mill about anxiously and wring their hands about the cold season, and the small bag of rice digs into his hands. 

The entire treacherous walk home, through the rocky paths, rice sack pulling his arms out of his sockets, is spent thinking. Ruminating, fretting. If the harvest is bad this year, there won’t be much food for the market vendors to sell, let alone left over to eat. The villagers are going to be frugal this winter; the same cold spell that hurt the plants means they won’t be stepping away from their huts outside of work and necessities, and they’ll pinch pennies to save food and clothes. 

Meaning customers will be scarce this winter. 

He’s already noticed business drying up in the past days, and so has Nya, no matter how hard he tries to comfort her otherwise. But Kai’s thinking what she probably hasn’t realized yet—less customers means less money flowing into their pockets. Less money means … 

Kai thinks of the drafts that breeze through their house at night, the dwindling packets of grains and vegetables stashed into the corners of crumb-dusted cabinets, the tears on their thinning clothes, and whimpers. 

That night, he uses the rice and makes a quick stew with leftover broth, throwing in old, soft veggies. It’s barely enough for half a person; Nya eats the whole thing down to the dregs and cries for more because they haven’t eaten a filling meal in days, so he digs around until he finds some stale bread slices. He takes out two and puts the rest away; she gets one, and—his stomach growls loudly as if in desperate, groveling thanks—so does he.

Nya giggles at the sound. He playfully elbows her and it becomes squealing, loud enough that she can barely get through a bite of chewed-up bread.

Kai takes a bite of his own slice, hard against his teeth and bland compared to the spicy stew, and doesn’t mention that it’s the first thing he’s eaten all day. 

He doesn’t _want_ to skip meals, but the winter looming overhead promises hard times ahead, and … he can’t make Nya starve for him. She’s his little sister, he’s gotta look out for her. No one else will, after all. He’d rather starve himself than let them end up back with their horrible uncle. It’s a small price to pay for their freedom, their safety, Nya’s happiness. 

Lying in bed, his stomach aching and threatening to fold in on itself, he reminds himself: it’s worth it for Nya, the days of taking in nothing but crumbs and water, sweating it out in the forge, heaving heavy metals and hammering them into shape, getting himself cut up on his tools, desperately sprucing up Four Weapons to attract passerby. Anything to avoid Nya walking around with that distracted furrow to her brow because she’s too hungry to think, anything to keep them clothed and in business and _afloat._

Anything to avoid feeling so helpless at their lot in life. 

After all, Kai can't change, no matter how much he wants to, the fact their parents vanished into thin air all those years ago. For all their love and warmth, they’re gone now. It’s just him and Nya. 

This is all he can do.

—————— 

Skulkin attack their home and take Nya with them, and he drives himself wild with fear. 

His incredible, strong, _stubborn_ sister. Gone to some far-off underworld no mortal can reach, if he believes the crazy old man that’s taken him in.Every second he’s not training, he flagellates himself for letting Nya stay in that fight. She’s the only family he’s got left in the world and Kai, model protector that he is, let her get kidnapped. A real bang-up job he’s doing, fending for them. 

His failure buzzes under his skin like the hornets that made nests in the village’s trees, louder and more frantic with each passing moment. It pushes him until Sensei and the others grow impatient with his reckless strikes alone. 

Kai stands there as they scold him, face hot, fists clenched. The other boys protest everything he does. Sensei Wu demands to know if he thinks he’s “better than the team”.

What do they know? That’s not _their_ sister in the hands of pure evil, suffering who knows what kind of torture because they failed to protect her, while he’s stuck waiting to collect some important weapons because he’s totally useless without them. 

Nya’s gone, and he’s helpless to do a thing about it. 

—————— 

Spinjitzu is an incredible force. The entire world blurs to a whirl of blazing flames, unlocked from somewhere deep within. Skeletons and snakes alike fall to his wall of fire. 

It’s _powerful,_ and that feeling is a heady rush of confidence. 

So obviously, when they unearth the Green Ninja prophecy from Sensei’s bag, Kai hungers. He’s never been one for believing tales and prophecies, but something from Sensei Wu, the First Spinjitzu Master’s son himself, and hidden away like this … has gotta be important, right?

The name sings sweetly in his mind, each new thing he hears about it fuel to his fire. It comes with incredible strength and a handle over more power than any being could imagine, if Zane’s to be believed. If Spinjitzu is incredible, then the power the Green Ninja must have in his veins must be like elixir. Who doesn’t want that kind of power in their hands? 

Kai fantasizes greedily when the others aren’t around, and frankly, even when they are. One after the other, Zane, then Jay, then Cole unlock True Potentials, making peace with the turmoil sealing their hearts off, and Kai is left in the dust. Far from giving up, he revels in the promised eventuality of power, of strength, of prophecy. It eats at him viciously until he’s irrevocably obsessed, boiling his blood like he’s been thrown into an iron cauldron. Just imagining the possibilities of what kind of power the Green Ninja holds sends a hot tingle through his fingers. If he’s prophesied to defeat evil incarnate himself, Lord Garmadon … he’ll be invincible. 

For so long, it’s just been him and Nya. Being a ninja is a calling he’s never realized he needed, something greater than just being a blacksmith scraping by for a living. Naturally, this is the next step, the culmination of all the work, all the training, all the blood and sweat. A ninja’s lifestyle means he’ll need the firepower to match, right? And he’s already had loss dangled in front of his nose—Nya got captured by Skulkin, now Lloyd’s in the hands of those _blasted Serpentine_. Kai wants nothing more than to go in, fists ablaze, and deck the noses of everyone who’s ever dared touch his family, but he’s not strong enough for that on his own. He needs the other ninja, and Sensei, and _Garmadon._ But with the power of the Green Ninja … 

There’ll be nothing that can stand in his way with that kinda power, if he can just prove that he’s worthy of getting it. 

He could do anything.

He’ll never be helpless again.

—————— 

He’s not the Green Ninja. 

It’s Lloyd. 

Kai realizes as he’s surrounded by searing-hot lava, with the kid clinging for dear life to his pant leg, and he resigns himself to it. 

It’s okay, though. He’s lost a chance for glory, but he’s gained something to protect with his life. Nya, strong, capable Samurai X, doesn’t really need him anymore, but young, vulnerable Lloyd? The runt will need all the care and protection he can get, especially now that he’s learned it’s on the books for him to fight his own father for Ninjago. He aches for Lloyd; it’s never easy to give up everything you want to do the right thing. 

Kai likes to think he knows a thing or two about that. 

Even though it’s much more unfair for Lloyd to fight Garmadon than it would be for him, who’s got no such qualms, Kai is as fine as he can be with how things turned out. He is. Which is why he lies in his bed that night, above a soundly-resting Zane, stares at the ceiling, and burns with what he could have— _should_ have—had. 

—————— 

Time passes. Kai learns to push down the resentment burning in his core until it dies down to smoldering embers, and he walks them barefoot, out of everyone’s sight, to remind himself of his position. His purpose on the team is to function as a part of it, because these dorks are his family now, and he knows that he would give his life for them unflinchingly. When Lloyd wins out against darkness, and shines his golden light over Ninjago, Kai swells with pride for his little brother. 

They’re a team of six, imperfect and strained, but they’re still determined enough to fight the Digital Overlord. Even with Jay and Cole at each other’s throats, even with Lloyd drained of his power, he knows they’ll make it out victorious. 

He never in a billion years anticipates it’ll come at the cost of cutting them down to five. 

Zane echoes Kai’s words to the Overlord— _”This isn’t about numbers! It’s about family.”_ —and they’re like a knife through his ribs. With a dawning sense of horror mirrored on his brothers’ faces, he realizes Zane has no intention of letting go, no matter how much Kai screams himself hoarse begging him to. It’s like watching Nya get kidnapped all over again, like realizing Lloyd was missing, like seeing his Sensei with robotic parts and blank red eyes as he raises his staff to crack down on Kai’s skull, except it’s _so much worse_. At least the other times he could fight, kicking and screaming, until they were safe again, but now?  
  
Now, Zane clings to the armor and implores them to _go,_ and there isn’t a thing in the world Kai can do except get yanked back by Wu as a shard of ice shatters in front of them. 

It’s a miracle Kai’s legs don’t give out, or that he doesn’t break free and charge ahead in a burst of flames. First master, he wants to, but his Sensei’s hand pins him back, and he has no choice but to watch from the safety of a manhole cover as Zane’s heart flatlines in an explosion of ice, beautiful and frigid and deadly. 

It doesn’t register to Kai. He already feels like he’s been doused in ice water. 

When the ones left behind start to fragment, he isn’t surprised; he can’t even bring himself to care. A more hopeful Kai would have appealed to their better natures and given an impassioned speech about the need to carry on in Zane’s stead like he would’ve wanted, but that’s not him anymore. He wore that all out on the day of the funeral, pouring his heart out about brotherhood while realizing how fragile it was to a backdrop of delicate flurries. Now, he does the unspeakable. 

He quits.

The Slither Pit is a den of lowlifes and thugs, people he once wouldn’t have been caught dead fraternizing with, but their scumminess is refreshing now. No pretenses of honor necessary when he’s punching someone’s lights out, after all. It feels better than it should, to bleed and sweat and take his disgusting existence out on other people; at any rate it’s the closest thing he’s getting to ever feeling good again. 

Kind, good-hearted Zane threw himself away for them, and they don’t even slightly deserve it. It’s petulant to be upset that it’s unfair, because nothing is fair anymore, but it’s a twisted world that kills Zane so ruthlessly and keeps him alive. 

Kai stoops to making money through underground fights, trying and failing to get away from the agonizing unfairness of it, and he festers in himself until the only thing getting him awake in the mornings is the black thrill of getting to beat someone into the concrete floor of the ring. 

He’s the one that’s supposed to protect them. That was what unlocked his power, what ignited the flame of his fighting spirit. Yet when it comes down to it, he always fails. He’s not even good for that, is he? He’s consistently thrown his soul into fighting for them, but it never manifests as more than a pale shadow of usefulness in the end. Kai’s never had real power, nothing worth brandishing. He was just grasping for straws. 

(He blows up when a ref calls him the _Flaming_ Shogun.) 

It should’ve been him, he thinks, ducking a flailing kick and hurling his body into a mean-spirited hook that sends the Fangpyre before him flying. Not that he should’ve been the Green Ninja, no, clearly he’s never deserved that. He should’ve been in Zane’s place. At least then he could claim he’d actually saved them, done something of _use_. 

The snake bares his fangs and lunges for his throat, but Kai just scowls deeper and hurls the scaly meatsack onto the floor, hard enough to send spidering cracks out from where he lands. It should’ve been him, but it wasn’t, so he gets to stand here in his shady little corner of society and fume about the loss, trying to beat the pain out. It doesn’t work. It never does. But he’s not about to admit that to himself. 

He doesn’t remember when he stopped refusing the suspicious green drink mix they throw his way as an offering. The sting as it slides down his throat is a welcome distraction, the buzz of his mind that was so discouraged as a ninja now taking the worst of the edge holding itself to his throat with every waking moment. He shouldn’t go down this road, he’s well aware it’s risky, but he’s already here. There’s no going back. If he’s a good-for-nothing, might as well go big or go home. 

Kai spirals deeper. 

Every night, when he lies on the tatters of a bed, fresh-forming bruises aching, he’s back under that manhole cover, screaming as Zane freezes hell over to save their lives. And clinging to Jay, skin cold from the ice crystallizing above him, he’s completely helpless to stop it. 

—————— 

Zane is alive, and the idea of it sends his heart flying before he crushes it under his heel and scolds himself for being careless. There’s caution that needs to be exercised, and Kai knows better than to entertain hope. 

His eyes catch on the reserved, secretive Skylor, and the tournament crawls by in a twisted circus with Chen as its ringmaster. Cole and Jay make up, but it costs them Cole’s participation in the coming rounds. Restrained, strategic action like this is unfamiliar after so long doing otherwise, and falling back into the habit, having a purpose to work for, reignites some of the old warmth and drive he lost for so long. Even with the wrenching betrayal roiling in his gut when he finds out who Skylor is, even when they’re all captured, he starts remembering who he is again; he’s Kai, red ninja, master of fire, and it burns bright with loyalty and the need to protect. 

The thing about fire, though, is that it is always burning, always hungry. 

And Kai, as he finds out the hard way, never really stopped starving.

His hands tighten around the staff. His face flushes with heat. 

What is he saying?! Lloyd’s eyes are wide and hurt, but entirely too resigned—he’s used to being seen as a walking ball of power in a green gi, Kai _knows_ this, why can’t he control the words coming out of his mouth?

He does know why he shrieks at Lloyd, _“I should’ve been the Green Ninja!”_ and he hates himself for it more violently than he has since he stepped foot on Chen’s island. 

Being the Green Ninja, if anything, has only made Lloyd’s life _harder._ The same undying hope and goodwill that Lloyd carries in the face of danger makes the wounds dig that much deeper every time he’s targeted for his power. Kai’s seen it, seen him grapple with his destiny pitting him against his father, and he’s still a horrible, selfish enough person that he wants the power anyway. 

He got a taste of it, in the Digiverse, what felt like eons ago, and the power is akin to being drenched in the sun after spending your life cold and lethargic. It whispered to him of glory, of strength, of power, and blast him and the whole world, _Kai still wants it._

Bless Cole a million times over, he knocks through the wall with his giant new toy and snaps Kai out of his power trip. After that, they're all too caught up fighting Chen, then grieving Garmadon. 

In the end it doesn’t matter that Kai never actually hit Lloyd with the staff. The look of pained acceptance in his eyes as Kai towered over him, helpless to stop himself from traumatizing this poor kid any further, sears itself into his mind and doesn’t fade. It's proof that he's done enough to shatter that trust. 

—————— 

Kai doesn’t forgive himself for slipping up. Instead, he falls into what he knows best: promising to look after Lloyd in Garmadon’s stead, promising protection and the unforgiving singe of his brightest flames towards anything that tries to hurt him. 

Morro barges into their lives like an unpleasant shock, on par with the sensation of being knocked by a gust from a three story apartment and slamming into concrete. Just like that, Lloyd’s gone, yet again being abused by someone who sees the power in him before anything else, and Kai’s left yelling desperately and clawing for him as the other ninja hook him back onto the Bounty. 

Wu’s ghost story sends chills running down his spine, and he’s both endlessly glad and guilty that no one draws the parallel he does. Morro is arrogant, vindictive, envious to a fault. 

Envious over the same thing _Kai_ was. 

It’s an ugly thing, to see yourself in the villain ruining lives. Knowing how he feels makes him all too keenly aware that Morro will not stop until he raises the dead, because anyone who keeps going after being spurned by destiny itself is a force to reckon with. 

This is one mission he cannot fail. Fail and Lloyd is lost. 

But … 

Kai thinks of the look in Lloyd’s eyes as he swung a staff up, over his head, ready to throw away everything good in his life for the taste of power, just because it makes him feel strong enough to stand up to the world. Thinks of Morro, who begged and screamed and _refused_ to accept that he wasn’t the Green Ninja. 

Even if the ninja triumph, there will be no real victory to be had. 

Whatever pieces are left of the relationship he has with his little brother, Morro is bound to smash into smithereens. Morro is angry at destiny, and Lloyd is his punching bag, and there's no telling what condition the Green Ninja will come back in. 

And once again, like a sick running joke, Kai is helpless to do a single thing about it.


End file.
